Multiplayerizing

Kelly DiggesTuesday, February 17, 2009

here was a time, in the distant past, when people built decks entirely without the aid of the Internet. In fact, there was a time when people did everything without the aid of the Internet. I find this basically impossible to imagine—which is a little weird, considering that I can in fact remember it pretty clearly. (Still, though ... did I really read new cards for the first time in a printed magazine? It boggles the mind a bit.)

As the Internet took shape and Magic took root on sites like The Dojo, a controversy developed over the concept of "netdecking"—copying deck lists off the Internet. It all seems a little quaint in retrospect; these days, the vast majority of tournament players would never consider not using an existing deck list, at least as a starting point. But at that time, netdecking was viewed by some as a threat to the creativity that defined the game. Anybody can win with a winning deck copied off web; it takes a realMagic player to brew a winner from scratch.

Eventually, the increasing ubiquity of Internet service and the proliferation of sites devoted to Magic—like, oh, say, this one—rendered the whole discussion obsolete. Tournament Constructed Magic is now basically defined by the interplay of which popular decks will see play and how the popular lists will adapt to this changing metagame.

The issue has remained a little more contentious in casual play. If someone sits down to duel me at my local store or in the casual room on Magic Online with a 75-card copy of the latest winning Five-Color Control list, well, at least one of us probably isn't having much fun.

But when we're talking about multiplayer, tournament deck lists often don't even make a lot of sense. They have cards that focus on attacking one player's cards or life total that don't do as much in multiplayer. They also, of course, feature cards that you may or may not have. Some players go out and get the cards they need to build exactly the deck they want; I tend to build decks with what I've got out of a sense of high-minded laziness.

Sometimes I see a tournament deck that really excites me, and I want to build something like it for multiplayer. I don't, however, want to copy the deck list exactly. That would be boring, and I probably don't have all the cards anyway. It also might earn me the animosity of my fellow players.

When I "multiplayerize" a tournament deck, I try to identify what essential things I like about the deck, what elements are there because of tournament-specific concerns, which cards I'm lacking, and what sort of additions and substitutions I can make without changing the deck's core concept. Let's take Nicholas Gulledge's White-Blue "UrzaTron" deck from a recent PTQ, featured last week on Top Decks and see what changes when it goes through the Muliplayerizator.

I love 'Tron decks. The combination of Urza's Mine, Urza's Tower, and Urza's Power Plant has helped some of my favorite ridiculously huge spells from Mirrodin block—Mindslaver and Sundering Titan in particular—see play in tournament Constructed. And even though, yeah, in practice Mindslaver never actually tends to control any turns—you build up to Mindslaver, Academy Ruins, and , and then your opponent concedes because you're going to play Mindslaver over and over until you deck them—still, just seeing it at tournament tables makes me smile.

What Does This Deck Do?

The whole point of this deck is to stay alive long enough (using white control spells) to dig to your Urza's lands (using blue card-draw spells) so you can get one (or more) of each 'Tron piece in play, so you can play your gigantic silly kill spells (Mindslaver, Sundering Titan, Decree of Justice, etc.).

What's Going to Stay?

The Urza's lands are definitely in, of course (although there was a nearly identical deck at one point that used Cloudpost + Vesuva instead). Wrath of God (or similar) is essential to the deck's control package, and blue card draw and/or tutoring of some kind will be necessary to put the 'Tron together quickly.

The Kitchen Finks and Sower of Temptation in the sideboard both seem worth a look for the finished deck, as life gain and Control Magic effects both get better in multiplayer.

The Mindslaver "lock" isn't much fun for casual duels, but in multiplayer it isn't a lock at all. Mindslaver is hilarious in multiplayer, going from "Stop hitting yourself!" to "You two—fight to the death!" The "lock" just lets you do that over and over again, which seems strong but still fun. Sundering Titan is even better in multiplayer than in single-player, as you'll often be able to avoid targeting any of your own lands, so I'll probably keep that one, too.

I looked back at White-Blue 'Tron decks from before the Elves menace reared its head and found them using counterspells like Remand and Condescend. I'm a little leery of counterspells in multiplayer, but a few cheap ones to protect these giant spells I'm trying to play definitely couldn't hurt.

Chrome Mox makes the deck fast enough for Extended, but in multiplayer I'd rather have the extra card than the extra turn. Losing Chrome Mox makes the deck easier to put together; I'll probably want to substitute more lands and/or additional artifact mana.

Mana

The dual lands will be based mostly on availability in my pool. I really want to keep the dual land count around where it was, although I don't think the specifics matter as much. I have two Hallowed Fountains and at least one Adarkar Wastes; I don't own any fetch lands at all, so Flooded Strand is out. I can fill out the rest as needed, although I'm biased against lands like Mystic Gate and Nimbus Maze that don't work as my only source of colored mana. If nothing else, I could do worse than Coastal Tower / Boreal Shelf / Arcane Sanctum.

I like Talisman of Progress in the artifact mana slot, although with Adarkar Wastes, I'll want to watch how much pain I'm taking. This deck will need to draw on its colored sources repeatedly, even with the four Signets. As it turns out, I don't have any Talismans of Progress (the only Talisman I lack, for whatever reason).

Counterspells

As I said, a few spot counters could go a long way toward protecting my big spells. For that role, Remand, Negate, and Lapse of Certainty are looking pretty good. I'm also considering Overrule, which doesn't dig like Condescend does but will potentially gain me a huge amount of life post-'Tron.

I haven't played with this deck yet, so we'll see what happens. I'm a little skeptical of the mana base, but if all goes well, the deck should be 'Tron-flavored fun that doesn't make anybody reach for their Fulminator Mages.

Expect a full report later!

Future Possibilities

While I was tinkering with this deck, it occurred to me that I could build a pretty cool green-white 'Tron deck based around Conflux's Knight of the Reliquary and a few similar cards like Reap and Sow. White is still your control color while green gets the 'Tron, draws cards, and potentially allows extra land drops from cards such as Rites of Flourishing. As soon as I have a few copies of Knight of the Reliquary, I do believe I'll try that out.

Meanwhile, though, there are some other tournament decks that have caught my eye. In Standard, I have a particular fondness for Red-White Tokens, a.k.a. Red-White Heights, alias Red-White Reveillark, also known as "Boat Brew." Here's a pretty good example from before Conflux was released:

The key thing I like about this deck is something it shares with the similar Black-White Tokens deck and some pre-Shards Kithkin decks: the neat little combo between Windbrisk Heights and Spectral Procession. You're hoping to stick Windbrisk Heights on turn one or two, make three tokens on turn three, and attack with them on turn four, slamming something nasty into play from under the Heights with mana to spare.

I was planning to build something around the Windbrisk Heights / Spectral Procession engine, whatever the colors ended up being, but I hit a snag when I discovered that my imagined panoply of Windbrisk Heights boiled down to ... one. I can't figure this out; I distinctly recall at least three of them at some point. Anyway, that'll have to wait, but I'm still thinking about it.

Wait For It

So what about you? Do you ever check out tournament decks for inspiration? If yes, what decks have caught your fancy recently? If no, is that personal preference, or will bringing a deck that looks like a tournament deck earn you dirty looks from your friends? Just curious!

Oh, one other, totally unrelated thing: I don't usually do these, but I've got a poll I'd like you to take. It might look familiar to some of you. Don't worry about that—just answer honestly, and I'll see you next week!